I play games on the PC. The only dedicated gaming hardware I own is a PSP, a PSP I purchased this year to scratch the itch of console style gaming. I had no intention of ever owning a PS3.  With the PSN outage Gamestop has issued a promotion where select PowerUp rewards members (read: idiots who gave Gamestop 15 dollars for a magazine and a trade-in discount (read: idiots like me)) would receive a $100 discount on 160Gb or 320Gb PS3's and I was one of said recipients of said coupon. Whats more is I also received my tax refund that day. I was teetering this way and that pondering whether I needed a PS3 in my life, when the next day, PSN was back online and as a "welcome back" gift Sony was handing out free PS+ for a month. I had no PS3, but I did have an account, necessary for use with my PSP, perhaps I too would receive a bunch of free stuff for the inconvenience  that was of no inconvenience to me.  I made a decision then, a decision that I indeed would own a PS3, but I was going to get the cheapest PS3 I could. I gathered 9 PSP games that I was rather fond of, but will purchase digital versions of shortly, and one lone XBox 360 wireless controller used for a few hours of GTA  IV on my computer and traded them in for an additional 87 dollars credit. $113 dollar PS3. Purchased Portal 2 and 3D dot Game Heros and left Gamestop with a PS3 and two games (three if you count my steam activation code). Success.
I didn't actually own a HD television, just an 8 year old LCD 20.1 monitor that was the shit when it rolled off the assembly line in 2003 (ViewSonic VP201B, look it up). Next on the agenda was to pick up HDMI to DVI converters. This itself was somewhat of a pain as the last place I looked (walmart) had everything I needed to run my PS3 off my Monitor as well as split the audio off onto my computer speakers. One problem, my monitor, while technically being 720p ready was not, apparently, HDCP compliant. Back to Walmart. Walked out with a simple yet effective 21.5 1080p computer monitor which worked like a charm. All said and done $113 PS3, $60 Games (portal 2, 3dDotGH etc) $140 Monitor $22 HDMI $17 DVI HDMI adapter. $352 start to finish to go from owning no consoles (love you PSP) to having a fairly decent setup. S'good.